


fragments

by ElasticElla



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 23:44:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3956371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElasticElla/pseuds/ElasticElla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It always takes exactly three hours before the memory wakes her up. Three hours full of bullet wounds, a disbelieving look, and crooked glasses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fragments

It always takes exactly three hours before the memory wakes her up. Three hours full of bullet wounds, a disbelieving look, and crooked glasses. She’s never fully rested these days, and when five am rolls around, she’ll give up and shower off the cold sweat. 

Karen doesn’t wipe away her mirror’s condensation any more. 

.

Matt knows something is wrong. He doesn’t push her on it, and she doesn’t snap about all the times he comes to work far more bruised than a lawyer should be. She also doesn’t tell him about Wesley. She considers going to confession, wonders if it would help her sleep better. 

But deep down she already knows it won’t, knows she’d have better luck praying to Morpheus. Her sleep isn’t interrupted by mere guilt, but by how easy the trigger was to pull. The Fisk of her nightmares doesn’t understand that, doesn’t come back after the first night. She’d give anything to trade, to close her eyes and no longer see _his_ bleeding body. 

.

One night, delirious after weeks full of three hour nights, she does pray to Morpheus. 

It doesn’t feel as ridiculous as it ought, and she begs for him to come in another form, to hold her close and make her sleep the pain away. 

He doesn’t hear, or he doesn’t exist- there is only the familiar figure, sitting across from her with threats on his breath. 

.

She’s at Ben’s bare grave, flowers long wilted, and her eyes wander. Wesley shouldn’t be buried so close, should have been burned to ash. 

That night she still only sleeps three hours, but this time, his eyes blink at her after he’s shot.

.

Nothing helps. 

She tries a dozen different sleeping pills, some off the shelf, some by prescription, and some off the streets. She tries a dozen different lovers, but the men turn into him and the women whisper how they’ll shoot her back. 

She wonders if this is how a mind breaks, pieces of herself floating away. She wonders if she's already broken.

His whisper echoes through the darkness, _why would I break you so easily? Some of us like to play with our toys_.

.

Foggy asks about the dark circles under her eyes, and she takes more care with her make up. Marci comes around more often, and she’s afraid she might stain their pure happiness. 

They’re beautiful together. They both seem so normal, so carefree. Karen doesn’t remember ever looking or feeling like that. 

.

Matt almost dies, a dozen deep knife wounds and a few bullets. She thinks if she weren’t so preoccupied she would have linked him to the Daredevil long ago. There’s the nurse from before, and Claire helps keep him breathing. 

It’s only fitting to bring her dinner, and the nurse sleeps almost as little as Karen. 

.

They get along better than either expect, and Karen brings her breakfast when she gets stuck at the hospital. Claire says she shouldn’t, but never insists and texts her when her shifts drag through the night. Karen promises not to text back if she’s sleeping, and Claire doesn’t hold back, terrible puns and old complaints filling her messages. 

Bags of bagels turn into brunches after Claire’s shift, and Claire laughs at how flexible Karen’s work hours are. Karen jokes about the devil giving great benefits, and suddenly realizes Claire is the nurse Matt used to date.

It sours in the back of her mind, and she can’t figure out why someone wouldn’t date him but would date her. She asks why they broke up one night, filter disabled at four am. Matt sleeps peacefully in the other room, recently bandaged up, and Claire sighs. 

“I just couldn’t watch him turn into a killer. The violence… some nights I can’t stomach it, and other nights I want to see the others hurt.”

Karen chokes up, and Claire misreads her reaction. 

“I know,” she adds, “but sometimes I believe him when he says he has the devil in him.” 

Karen doesn’t sleep at all that night. 

.

Claire kisses her, and her mind is blissfully empty. 

Claire kisses her, and she kisses back. 

Claire kisses her, and she still wakes up three hours later. 

.

Her dreams turn muddled, and she becomes confused rather than horrified. Karen wakes not knowing why she dreamt of Wesley’s bloody hands (were they ever bloody?) grabbing her breasts and Claire watching. Claire comments on form, and doesn’t join them. Claire comments on the blood, but doesn’t stitch anyone up or grab the gun.

It’s the first time she wakes up calm since. It’s easier not to understand.

(The calmness goes away at the thought, and she promptly vomits up stinging bile.) 

.

She doesn’t tell Claire. 

She knows she ought to, knows it makes her a terrible person. 

But she figures she can’t get much worse than the girl who kept pulling the trigger.

.

He laughs at her, in the dreams, in the darkness. 

_You can’t even function properly any more._

.

Claire fills silences like she’s never spoken to someone before. 

She wonders if Claire knows she’s holding something back- she must- and she guiltily kisses her words away. Each confession brings the words closer to her lips, but they never fit quite right. A terminal patient dying in their sleep isn’t anything close to murder. The closest is a story from when Claire was sixteen and just learning how to drive and accidentally hit their neighbor’s dog. That should have been telling, but Karen doesn’t want it to be. 

She still doesn’t sleep, but it’s easier now.

.

It takes a few months before Claire stays the whole night- before she isn’t called away to the hospital or Matt’s side. She sleeps lightly and wakes when Karen does. She asks how long it’s been going on, and with her filter gone at four-thirty she finds herself answering. 

“Since I killed him.” 

.

Claire doesn’t spend the night again; she hugs and doesn’t kiss, echoing words she must have said to Matt.

Wesley laughs louder.


End file.
